In the hedge fund world, it's one thing to be a short seller. It's quite another, however, to be a short-selling activist — someone who publishes their short ideas in an effort to garner public support to bring down a company.
Some short activists endure long, very public campaigns, the attention-seeking nature of which can sometimes backfire. Still, there's a lot of money to be made, and even sometimes a fraud to be uncovered, when a short activist is right, according to a new database, Activist Shorts Research, which has aggregated publicly available data on the performance of short activist campaigns. In fact, Activist Shorts' first study found that following a short activist on an investment for a week after announcing their position produced an average 12.5% return for an investor.
Here's a look at the best and worst in the short activism game.